today on r t it wasn't until the korean war that americans first learned about the effects of p.t.s.d. on soldiers and civilians but in the age of the drone the physical and cycle physiological impacts of these uvas. civilians they are just starting to become clear we'll take a look at the human toll in just a bit. and it was supposed to be a last resort to force bipartisan cooperation on a budget plan but today sequester ation is looking more and more like a reality the first cut could be the deepest the military has ever seen that story coming up. and speaking of money whistleblowers on wall street are throwing their

support behind president obama for the two thousand and twelve election this is quite the president relentless pursuit of so-called truth seeker's so why are some whistleblowers rewarded while others are punished some answers ahead. and tuesday october second four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. a looming budget cuts are expected to be a big talking point on the campaign trail right now and that is because of congress can't compromise on how to resolve the nation's debt problem the result would be a seaquest ration or about half a trillion dollars in mandatory cuts to the defense budget over the coming decade to break it all down for you the defense budget would be cut an additional fifty five billion dollars per year that's over four hundred ninety two billion that.

from milicz from the military over the next ten years we're looking at a twenty percent reduction in defense spending a hundred thousand soldiers sailors marines and airmen would be separated from service and cuts in spending on military equipment means a lot of over one million private sector jobs this would all start in january a top officials say such a drastic cuts poses a grave danger to the nation's security but we all know that military spending in the u.s. is massive so what could these cuts really mean to discuss i'm joined now by attempt vana managing editor for reason dot com tim welcome. there's a lot of fear about what these cuts could do what it really mean for the u.s. military if this sequester ation goes into effect what it would mean as you said ruefully five billion a year is easily absorbed if your goal is to make sure the united states is safe from foreign attack i mean with even without seacoast ration somehow we manage not

to have enough security around our embassy in libya fifty five billion a year can you know it's a few airplanes it is you know not even a submarine which who knows what submarines or even defending us from anymore it's absurd that we are in this situation where this is considered catastrophic you know an eight point two percent reduction if not these are never really cuts they're actually reduction in the rate of growth so. there is nothing to fear here what we have to fear is if the situation if if they do solve this problem because we're just going to be looking at more growth more debt and more spending as time goes on we've got a sixteen trillion dollar debt in this country sixty more than sixty percent of all new debt is now being bought by the federal reserve we know it's not even being bought by traditional bond holders and we have a and huge sense spending problem in this country and if. sequester ration is what

we need to do to least try to pretend to get it under control then there's nothing to complain about now you're saying that you know what this might not be such a such a big deal but we're hearing from people like senator john mccain he's saying that this could quote lead to an inability to defend the nation we have defense secretary leon panetta saying that this could invite aggression a lot of catastrophic scenarios that they are portraying what do you think about what they're saying there is a catastrophic because of the way that sequester ration has been done it's a thing goes back to one thousand nine hundred five to what's called the gram rudman hollings act and the idea is that if all of the different levels of spending are a large appropriation something like that if all those different areas of spending cut into more than the congress has already agreed is our spending limit for the year and it's one point two trillion that's a lot of money already on top of sixteen trillion dollars in debt if it comes to

more than that then you sequester what's left over you sequester the overage basically that's what it means over the years as these things always do they've added more and more things to the you know do not cut with social security doesn't get sequestered lots of defense stuff doesn't get sequester mean unnecessary defense stuff doesn't get this done so why should i. hold or viewers may remember that in the one nine hundred ninety s. there was a so-called shutdown of the government when newt gingrich and bill clinton came to blows it couldn't it was on the other world and i didn't even notice it nobody noticed i mean i did not lose an minute of sleep i didn't eat a morsel less food and nobody did around the country and it was no problem ok you talked about this national debt it's pretty pretty bad right now it exceeds the america's g.d.p. so even if the seaquest ration does happen does that come even close to really address. i think the debt problem no no i mean this is this is the that we're even

having this discussion that we're talking about you know the people talking about the congressional staffers having to be having to be reduced or work you know partial hours or something like that like this is this big catastrophe that we're all looking at and when we're looking at a much bigger catastrophe and fewer and fewer people want to buy our debt and we are issuing more of it every day and there is no serious plan out there romney does not have a serious plan but even that is more serious than obama's plan the senate has not even passed a budget in two or three four years something like that this is this is insane and we just cannot go on like this and you know another thing that the defense of defense department is saying another catastrophic consequence of a possible seaquest ration is that there will be a lot of jobs lost the particularly in the defense industry and they're saying that . you know create the domino effect hurt our already fragile economy

do you see that being a big risk once again older viewers may remember in the one nine hundred ninety s. we had a big what they called the peace dividend when you know lots of bases closed and lots of contractors had to find other things to do with their time and actually the economy boomed and you know why we have an active question the purpose of the armed services is just to defend this country it's not to create jobs the military is not a jobs program and you know with all due respect i don't want to see soldiers airmen sailors laid off but we're long way from that we might be talking about some contractors losing things there was a scandal about that just the other day president obama issued these orders to contractors wait till the election before announcing your light off you know so. maybe something would be happening along those lines but again this is not new news defense contractors like lockheed martin suffering possibly possibly suffering yes i have a terrible. feeling that they will solve this problem prior to january do you think

that you have your faith and congress no i have no faith in congress i don't want them to solve the problem i want them to get to the fiscal cliff we need to go off the fiscal cliff we're not going to get spending under control in this country if we don't. well now because of this looming debt crisis that's possible seaquest range and we are hearing talk of the debt crisis do you think that it's forcing government officials on both sides now to focus on on this national debt problem. and i hope i mean they they should be focused on it but what we're talking about is not solving the debt problem what they need to do is if this is a problem if we're going to get to this problem where there are appropriating more than the limit than the spending limit they need to appropriate less they need to do it the rational way the way anybody else does when they can the budget you have one point two trillion dollars to spend in a year that's a lot of money and if you can't get the fixing the dome on the capitol building or

whatever it is that they're talking about these big catastrophes we're going to deal with if you can't get that within a one point two trillion dollars limit there's something wrong there's something there are a lot more wrong than just the inability to work in a bipartisan manner to get around to sequester ration ok well you're saying sequester ation is not even enough does not even come close to addressing that's very dire budget crisis of what needs to be done because it sounds like you're talking about massive massive cuts one thing that could happen is we need to go back to what the original idea was with this quest ration which was that everything gets cut even you you don't leave anything out you put social security on the table you put everything else on the table and all of those things get reduced again when we took almost always in d.c. when people talk about cuts they're actually just talking about reducing the increase it's at the rate that you're increasing it and that's what they define as a cut so we need. we need to get that out of our heads and we need to get the idea

that you're going to actually spend less this year than you spent last year on doing it i don't know about you but most people out there are making less than they were a few years ago so they're spending less all right well perhaps we could take the lesson from bill client that it's all about arithmetic right during the democratic side all about the arithmetic and they want they want you to think that the same that works when you're trying to balance your own checkbook doesn't apply when it's their money but it is the same all right well we do have the much anticipated the first presidential debate tomorrow between president obama and mitt romney do you think this is going to be on the top of the agenda or at least somewhere it will be because romney is you know he's used that as a as a line of attack against obama and he picked paul ryan as his running mate because paul ryan. undeservedly in my opinion has this reputation as a budget hawk so it's going to be a talking point again though if none of them are really talking about solving the

problem that we have which is we need to cut or spending addiction very interesting tim thanks so much for coming on the show that was tim van a managing editor for reason dot com. well as we near election day we thought it would be a good time to take a look at one of the serious promises president obama made both in his campaign and in recent years the promise to crack down on big banks who play by their own rules and there's something very interesting interesting that just came out a report in the new york times that shows lawyers who represent corporate whistleblowers have been big winners under president obama and are doing everything in their power to keep them in the white house parties christine for that breaks it all down. corporate greed on wall street is an issue that's been center stage ever since the financial meltdown of two thousand and eight now voices on both the right and the left have tried to find ways to deal with the fallout the bottom line here is that there have been some measures taken to try to deal with corporate fraud and

abuse one strategy has been to try to lure insiders or whistleblowers to come forward and report what they've seen and even if they've been part of that illegal activity to reward them how much of this goes back to dodd frank a piece of legislation which addresses a number of issues one of them gives incentives to whistleblowers to report those policies which inevitably do harm to customers and taxpayers alike even if they do rake in a whole lot of money for those at the top so as you can imagine most of wall street is not in favor of this here's what governor romney thinks about these stricter penalties and about dodd frank overall. when you increase the number of regulations that a rate three times that of his predecessor with a bill like dodd frank that makes it harder for small banks to grow and thrive and make loans you don't have jobs president obama on the other hand it wants to stay the course cracking down on fraud and holding those big banks accountable. when we

learned that a major bank has serious problems we will hold accountable those responsible force the necessary adjustments provide the support to clean up their balance sheets and assure the continuity of a strong buyable institution that can serve our people and our economy all right this is where things get interesting the lawyers representing some of those corporate whistleblowers are supporting the president they've already raised about three million dollars for him according to this new york times report since president obama has been in office the government has paid out about one point six million dollars to corporate whistleblowers in many cases the law firms are the big winners taking a cut of about forty percent of the proceeds and i want to be clear this is by no means a rant on corporate whistleblowers it just leads to a question very few people seem to be asking what about the other whistleblowers the ones the government has taken issue with here are just

a few examples thomas drake a former executive with the national security agency who made public a secret program in which the n.s.a. was illegally spying on its citizens was charged by the government under the espionage act so too was john kiriakou who disclosed information that waterboarding was being used as an interrogation technique and of course there's bradley manning the accused wiki leaks or who shared classified documents as well as that collateral murder video private manning of course a u.s. citizen and a military veteran who spoke up because he saw what he believed was wrongdoing and he reported it he's now been in prison nearly nine hundred eighty s. and much of that was in solitary confinement that's all well and good that a small group of lawyers are making a killing on those who report wrongdoing on wall street but what about those who report when their government is breaking the rules where is the bill and for that matter where are the backers for them it's just one important issue to look at as

election day looms. in washington christine for south r.t. . also ahead here on r t drones have no doubt revolutionized the way americans fight the physical and psychological toll these views are having on civilians is just starting to become clear a look at the implications when we come back. let's

take a look now at a new study on a drone strikes that raises many questions about the obama administration's drone campaign there are court was released this week by the center for civilians and conflict at columbia university and sheds light on how the secrecy surrounding drone strikes leaves the public in the dark about the real consequences of drone warfare it suggests that while drone deaths are significantly understated not even the u.s. government knows the true death toll and beyond the figures there port takes a comprehensive look at the drone campaigns impact on civilians and pakistan yemen

and somalia to talk more. about the findings and what it all means one of the authors of the study are in shah associate director of the counterterrorism and human rights project at columbia law school. so this report looks at problems with the drone campaign that have virtually gone unnoticed can you talk about some of these findings our main finding is that there's way too much that we don't know about drone strikes the u.s. government has assured in a program of drone strikes it started under president george w. bush it's vastly accelerated under president obama and it's in yemen it's in somalia it's in pakistan and we're even hearing reports that it's in mali in the philippines all over the world yet we don't know really who's involved in these drone strikes what the standards are and what the processes are now do you think that government officials and policymakers underestimate or fail to recognize some of the consequences of this drone campaign that's absolutely right we're talking

not just about the number of civilians killed or the number of militants killed but the toll on these communities in parts of pakistan somalia and yemen we're talking about regions where there's already a problem of war but this is really adding to the problem as we have civilians were really caught in the crossfire between milligan militant groups on the one hand and u.s. drone strikes on the other they're afraid of being being targeted merely because they're associating with individuals because they're outside they don't know what will let them be targeted and that's creating for them environment of hysteria and psychological torment when they just don't know when a drone will strike already and going along with that can you talk more about that because i know that this report takes a really close look at that not just at the the death tolls of these strikes but you know and that's oftentimes what we hear reported what the media does focus on but beyond that how these drone strikes impact civilians on the ground. well the impact is a great one but it's also one that's gone unexplored even by journalists in organizations like ourselves because we're talking about regions that are really

restricted that aside what we're hearing and what our report references is the fact that there are civilians on the ground who are afraid to send their kids to school they're afraid to seek medical attention because of these ongoing drone strikes sometimes in pakistan very frequent drone strikes over a period of two or three weeks people are afraid even to go out to associate with each other because they just don't know what will happen we've heard stories about families being torn apart and really having to struggle for a livelihood because a breadwinner is killed and. what are the long term effects of this what. does this fueling anti-american sentiment which would then be counterproductive in terms of our fault foreign policy interests you know it's really it's so hard to tell because we're talking about places in the world where there's already some amount of anti-american sentiment but what we don't do know is that whenever the u.s. is going into a country and exerting its force they're going to polarize public debate in those countries so to us and tell you

a sentiment it's not that's the beginning of the iceberg the tip of the iceberg really because we're also talking about governments in those countries that are seen as cooperating with the united states they want lose their legitimacy in their own publics views that can have a destabilizing effect on democracies and governments all across the world where we're conducting drone strikes and i want to talk about why people advocate drone proponents of drones and the u.s. government they say and they they tell this precedes it that is enabled by drone and it's presumed that such precision is able to pinpoint its targets and limit civilian deaths does this report say otherwise. well the problem is that we're talking about a technology that's far beyond the practice so we do have great technology drone technology is incredibly advanced but in practice if we're using it secretly in with a few boots on the ground we're not really realizing its advantages in terms of really being able to know who we're killing in fact we don't know who we're killing if we don't have ground troops on the ground to say to pinpoint the intelligence and to

say this is what's happened after the fact we went in investigated and looked and this is who we killed so when you use drone technology without having boots on the ground when you use it secretly those advantages that we've heard the obama administration reference aren't necessarily realized so you're talking about this cold drone campaign that's essentially what it is and so when it comes to civilian protection how does the use of drones compare to full scale military operation operations you know military operations that are more. commonly known and commonly use that is a and where we dealt with that as a nation before well there's a huge imbalance between the way victim of a drone strike a mistaken victim would be treated in afghanistan compared to pakistan and afghanistan they might get some recognition from the u.s. military or a person from the u.s. military might come and visit their family home and apologize for what has happened they might be provided some compensation it might not be enough it can never be enough when a fairly members killed but in pakistan there's no one to go to when you think that

you've been unjustly injured or when your family member has been killed there's no visible sign of what's going on for these people except for the destruction of their home with the killing of the loved one in that lack of visibility that secrecy can really damage u.s. credibility that we've so hard work worked on so much in afghanistan now with. what kind of precedent do you think that this is setting this drone campaign i mean in terms of handling civilian protection and you know the future use of drones is this going to lead to drone warfare becoming the norm. i do think that it's leading to drone warfare becoming the norm unfortunately the united states is taking the lead in using the sec knology without taking the lead in setting its limits other countries are rapidly acquiring joint technology many already have it we know that they'll be using it in future conflicts and they'll when we the united states government want to say you can't use your own technology in that way we won't have a leg to stand on the u.s. government will be called out as hypocrites because the united states never articulated those standards in those limits on its own practices so do you think

that we're kind of setting the standard setting the norm and then you know other cut other countries are going to want to level the playing field and what we have is you know just all out drone warfare i mean that sounds like a pretty scary scenario but is this a future that we're looking at where we are looking at the future and unfortunately where it's history repeating itself with the u.s. being the first country to use the atomic bomb and every country after that saying when the u.s. wanted to limit nuclear weapons saying well you're the first ones who did it and the bigger problem drone technology drone warfare it is a scary thing it's it's not just science fiction that we have the capability with drone technology of having autonomous robots i know it sounds crazy autonomous robots making those targeting decisions themselves and i don't think the u.s. government would let that happen with our own joint technology but we don't know how drone technology would be used by other countries and that capability of autonomous robots is there and this is absolutely terrifying but despite what you're saying drone strikes are widely supported and the united states if there

wasn't actually action i want to bring some statistics. regarding this the number of americans who agree with drone strikes eighty three percent approve of drone use against terrorist suspects overseas fifty nine percent of supporters strongly agree twenty six percent of supporters somewhat agree seventy nine percent of supporters think targeted killings of suspected american terrorists is justified but i want to ask you you know if there wasn't as much secrecy surrounding the drone strikes you know in the civilian consequences if they were made more public do you think that there would be as much public support of this campaign. i do think part of the problem is secrecy but part of the problem is also that when people hear about drone strikes they think of the us surgically going after top terrorists and that's it what we actually have is not just a kill list with some top terrorists that we can go after and then get out we have the u.s. going in conducting drone strikes against an identified individuals people traveling in convoys people in groups walking around schools other buildings that's the

reports that we're hearing it's not clear if that's the case but we do know that the u.s. doesn't just go after these top terrorist leaders and that's the common public perception that it's just limited to a few bad guys now that sounds good to anybody who's sick and tired of us being in iraq and afghanistan and wants to see u.s. troops come home an end to these bloody conflicts but the fact is that our drone war is expanding into a full war in that sense right there and really appreciate you coming on the show that was no rain shot associate director of the counterterrorism and human rights project at columbia law school. well speaking of drones you can see for yourself what it's like to operate one in a new video game after all real drone operators use joysticks and screens to attack people halfway across the world the game is called unmanned mole mali industrious video game takes you on a day in the life of a drone operator but it's not the typical shooting in exploding bad guys plotline

it explores what it's actually like to be a drone operator well here it is the first level forces the player to navigate through a drone operators nightmare filled with middle east stereotypes haunting the landscape the second levels main challenges attempting to shave your face with a dull razor while fighting off exhaustion now by the time you're actually tracking suspicious characters you've got to split your attention between operating the surveillance drone and flirting with your coworker so as you can see it's not your typical video game of a drone war has made killing less humane by turning enemy combatants into blips on a screen unmanned tries to bring back that humanity their experience you learn that people operating in detonating these drones are still people and when you play as one of them you'll make choices that affect people in his life and those halfway around the world so that is going to do it now for the news but of next is the capital account with lauren lyster and let's check up with her to see what she has

cooked at lawrence hi there liz let me start with a question we're going to look at a phone you have given i phone i do have an i phone yes you do have an i phone so you are one of the customers that have led apple to become what many would consider the largest company by value in the world in terms of market capitalization but when you have a company this large is it responsible for a lot of damage if things go wrong could it be proverbially too big to fail as we typically just refer to big banks as being that is the question we're going to ask today especially as our guest says apple's next develop. it may not be a new i phone or a new i pad but maybe an eye bubble and we're going to talk about what happens with an eye pop whiz wow that's really interesting never thought of that that's all coming up next on floor and that's going to do it now for the news for more on the stories we cover check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash artsy america or check out our web site r t the com slash usa and you can also follow me

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